Formal Invitation
by Rurouni Tyriel
Summary: (ONE-SHOT) New heroes worldwide are being invited to join the Justice League, and Supergirl’s name has come up on the new roster. Superman heads to Metropolis to a long, personal talk with his cousin about joining the Justice League.


**Disclaimer:**

I don't own Justice League, though I damn well wish I did.  Or maybe just Supergirl.  Oh yeah.  Her, a tropical island, and some coconut oil.  That's all I'd need.

**Summary:**

Many new heroes worldwide are being invited to join the Justice League, and Supergirl's name has come up on the new roster.  Superman heads to Metropolis to a long, personal talk with his cousin about joining the Justice League.  One-shot just prior to and during the initial scenes of 'Initiation.'

Superman floated easily amongst the clouds, cruising at a slow, easy speed through the air as he headed back towards the shining city of Metropolis.  He'd just finished another meeting with the rest of the Justice League at their makeshift base of Bruce Wayne's Manor.  The topics of the meeting had been rather interesting, to say the least.

Firstly, using his alter ego's legitimate business and a number of loopholes and plots (including some blackmail involving Lex Corp that he would rather not know anything about), Batman was managing to obtain the funding and the people needed to reconstruct the Watchtower.  If anything, the new Watchtower was going to make the old one look like an explorer probe, and Batman had gone over a few of the design modifications during the meeting, pulling out some blueprints and the like to show to other members of the League.  Superman had paid dutiful attention, but the majority of it went clear over his head.  The two Johns seemed to be interested, however, adding their insights from past experience (one with the knowledge of a alien species, the other from the service in an intergalactic law-enforcement group), so Superman supposed all these new changes would be for the best.  Plus, the other main mention of the meeting had dictated that a lot of changes were going to be needed.

That point of order being, of course, the induction of new members.

J'onn had offered up a similar suggestion a few months ago during his absence from the League, to induct new members and replenish their admittedly small forces.  Now, with Hawkgirl's absence, the idea had taken root, though at first many had been reluctant to speak of it.  No one wanted to appear eager to replace Hawkgirl on the League.  To just substitute her with another hero and move on.  Despite claims to the contrary, they were not a inter-changeable group, they were a family as much as they were heroes.  They were going to miss Hawkgirl.

Well, some more than others.  Superman still hadn't gotten over the betrayal she'd -willingly- visited upon the League when her people had returned.  Sure, he'd done some things he had never been proud of, but never something that low, that despicable, without being under mind-control.  Still, he did sympathize with her, and time would tell if she'd be welcomed back into the League with open arms.

But finally the matter had been brought up, and quickly accepted.  Ideas and names had been passed around the meeting, and it seemed that J'onn had already been working in secret to observe some members of the superhero community and see if they were League-worthy material.  Batman had already been in contact with his protégé's, but so far none of them had expressed any interest.  Admittedly, they would be slightly out of their league amongst super-powerful aliens and meta-humans, but so far that had yet to trouble Batman.  Time would tell if they'd be seeing Nightwing, Robin, or Batgirl among their number.

Batman had also said he would contact one of his legitimate business partners, a fellow by the name of Oliver Queen, as well as a former acquaintance of his, a magician named Zatanna.  He didn't provide details, and most of the Leaguers were wise enough to know this was not an invitation to ask for them.  Green Lantern said he would see if Metamorpho was interested, while J'onn would contact Jason Blood.  After their encounter with Morgana La Fey, the two had maintained an casual friendship, united by their hatred of the sorceress.  Wonder Woman was to contact Dr. Fate and Aquaman and see if either of them was interested as well, though he suspected they wouldn't be.  They were too used to being loners to join any sort of group.  Other names had been passed around, with Flash being given the dubious honor of writing and delivering the invitations to those deemed worthy of joining the new League.  Captain Atom, Black Canary, and many more.  As well as a number of names that were immediately rejected.  Lobo's prominently among them.

The day Lobo joined the League really would be over my dead body, thought Superman as he glided closer to Metropolis, dropping down a little lower so he just skimmed over the roofs of the skyscrapers.  Unfortunately, mention of Superman's funeral had also brought up another name onto the table of potential Leaguers, and Superman had almost visibly winced when it had been.

Supergirl.

He dipped lower, scanning the city streets idly on his way back towards his apartment.  Kara was supposed to be watching over it while he was away.  He knew she generally used the time to patrol the city herself as Supergirl.  He tried to discourage her from doing so, but despite all her incredible power, she was still only a teenage girl, with all the willful disobedience that having that title brought with it.  One of the main reasons he was worried about having her name brought up by the Justice League as a possible member.

As if he didn't have plenty of others, he thought grimly.  One of the main reasons he'd decided to make this trip and personally talk to her.  If she was going to be a member of the Justice League (and as far as that was concerned, a pretty big if) some things were going to have to change.

Suddenly a gunshot rang through the air, and Superman paused in mid-flight, focusing his super-hearing and x-ray vision to try and locate it.  It'd been some distance away.  Ah, there it was, he thought, as another shot rang out.  Then a whole bunch of them.  A machine gun.  And possibly a shotgun, he thought, recognizing the sounds of most weapons from his long career as the Man of Steel.

As his x-ray vision finally managed to locate the criminals in question, instead of zooming down to stop them (as was normally his first instinct), he gave an exasperated sigh.

She'd beaten him to it.

She'd just been out for a quick patrol.  Something to pass the time until there was something good on TV, she thought.  It's not like it was her fault that some idiots still existed in Metropolis who actually thought they could get away with a fairly major crime like robbing a bank as long as Supergirl was in town.  It was their fault.

She smirked, hovering on the rooftop of a nearby building, deciding to give them a fair head-start.  She'd even been generous enough to let them pile up the dough in their car and high-tail it down the street at high speed and with no regard for safety regulations.  That's when she'd zipped down, fast as a bullet and directly into their path.  She braced herself, holding out her hand in a mock 'stop' gesture.  They skidded to a stop at the sight of her, their car coming to rest perhaps an inch from her shins.  She smirked.

"There's two ways we can do this," she said, folding her arms across her chest.  Partially to appear menacing and partially to cover her full bosom.  It never failed to infuriate her how often she was underestimated or, far worse, ogled at.  "Easy way or the hard way.  Which would you prefer?"

One of the masked robbers answered with a pistol, shooting her full in the chest.  She barely even staggered, though she did flinch.  Contrary to popular belief, getting shot -did- hurt even an invulnerable Kryptonian's skin, though Clark was able to more easily shrug off the feeling of being shot.  Though he did have a lot more experience at it.

A second shot rang out from the man with the pistol, but this time Supergirl was more than ready, dodging aside at a speed that bordered on blurring.  She ducked down low and, pushing off with her legs, launched herself forward, grabbing the pistol and crunching it into scrap metal right in the gunman's hand.  He staggered back fearfully.

"Get her!" he shouted, his voice only slightly muffled by the black mask he wore.  The other gunmen piled out of the car, leveling their weapons at Supergirl.

"Hard way it seems," she muttered, and immediately set to dodging the bullets being blasted at her from a machine gun and a pair of pistols and a shot gun.  She might not've been too damaged if they managed to hit but they still hurt like a bitch and she'd avoid them if at all possible.  Grunting, she ducked down and made a low run towards one of the crooks, slamming him in the gut.  She was careful to hold back her full strength, and he managed to escape with little more than the air knocked out of him.  He slumped to the ground.

A sudden shotgun burst nearly caught her off-guard, but she dodged aside again, and this time didn't even bother to close the distance.  As the burglar attempted to re-load his weapon it suddenly got red-hot in his hands and he dropped it in astonishment.  The gun fell to the ground and melted in seconds into a pool of slag.

"Anyone else wanna try?" asked Supergirl, hands on her hips with a cocky grin spread across her pretty features.  God, how she loved this.  Not just helping people (though she did get a great deal of satisfaction out of that too) but giving a good, honest smacking around on bad guys who really deserved it.  Her biggest disappointment was that she couldn't use it on school bullies.

Unnoticed by the young Kryptonian, one of the thugs had snuck up behind her, aiming a pistol right at the back of her head.  She hadn't even noticed, and the burglar smirked as he started to ease back on the trigger...

... only to have his gun explode right in his hand, sending him stumbled backwards to fall flat on his butt, wringing out his hand.  Thankfully, it wasn't damaged, just suffering shock from the gun's explosion.  A shadow fell over him, and a rather large shadow at that.  The thug peered up fearfully at the visage of Superman, who's hand was outstretched, one finger pointing.  He'd stuck it right inside the barrel of the gun, and the backlash of the explosion was what had destroyed it.  Superman grabbed the burglar's shirt and hauled him back into the center of street with his vanquished comrades.  Superman ripped off the bumper of their car and tied it around them, using his heat vision to weld it shut around their bodies.  That would hold them until the police arrived.

Now that that was settled, he turned to face Supergirl, who had the good nature to look embarrassed at her rescue at the hands of her cousin.

"Oh, uhm.. hey Cl... er, Kal," she said, stumbling over his Kryptonian name.  Not one of the foremost experts on the whole 'secret identity' idea, Kara wasn't very good at calling him anything other than Clark.  He'd had a talk with her about that a while back, and she was trying, but they needed to be careful.  All it took was one little slip-up to bring all the forces of hell crashing down upon them.  Bad enough she'd been seed at Superman's funeral without her wig and glasses disguise.

"Care to explain?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest as he glanced over at the criminals, one of whom was still unconscious, the other two watching them fearfully.

"Hey, you were out of town, I just happened to spot this little altercation, and well... you know... did the superhero thing."

"We've talked about you doing the 'superhero thing'," he said, his voice emphasizing the quotation marks in his choice of words.  "Come on, I see we need another discussion," he said, lifting himself up into the air.  Reluctantly, Supergirl followed suit, though keeping a respectful distance behind her cousin and mentor.

Clark reached his apartment and more or less immediately ordered Kara to go change into something other than her costume.  Reluctantly, she did so.  He headed to his room, doing the same, placing it in a box and under his bed as he always did then grabbing a t-shirt and some casual slacks.  He wasn't going out, after all.  But he wanted to have a word with her.

So it was that when she emerged from the guest room, he was waiting on the couch for her.  She too was in black jeans and a white t-shirt, with a red and black Smallville High team coat over that.  She hadn't bothered with her wig and glasses, leaving both of them in the guest room.

"Sit down, Kara," he said, indicating a chair across from the couch.  "We need to talk."

"What's to talk about?" she asked, flopping down into the chair with such enthusiasm that Clark feared it was going to break under the sudden movement.  Thankfully, it didn't.  But she wasn't winning points with him.

"Supergirl," he said, answering her question.  She nodded, just sitting there fearfully.  No doubt she was expecting a long, boring, and pointless speech about how she was too young to play costume superhero.  About maybe how she shouldn't risk her life.  About how, despite her doing the right thing, it was better she didn't.

She was in for some disappointment.

"Kara, listen..." he said, back-tracking a little.  "Its not that I'm not proud of what you did tonight.  I am.  But you have to be more careful.  That one guy could've blown a hole in the back of your head if I hadn't shown up."

"Oh come on, he had one lousy pistol.  At worst he'd've given me a headache," she replied, waving her hand dismissively.

"You take things too lightly," he said.

"And you take them too seriously Clark!" she said, her voice rising an octave or two as she started to whine.  "Come on, would you seriously be berating someone like J'onn or Batman if they'd be in my place?!"

"They're older than you," he replied, without thinking.  "They have more experience."

"And how did they get experience, if not by going out their and learning the hard way?!" she asked, exasperated.  Then, visibly making an effort to calm down, she took in a few breaths and sighed deeply.  "Alright, alright... I'm sorry."

"Kara, I'm just concerned about you.  So are Ma and Pa," he added, hoping that would soften her a little.  Her adopted parents had grown on her, after all.  She almost respected their views more than Clark's, and for that he supposed he should be grateful.  Sometimes they did usually know the best thing to do.

"I know, and I appreciate all you've done for me... and all they've done for me," she added.  "But I can't just sit back and live a normal life like they do.  I want to do what you do!" she said, standing up.  "I want to help people."

Clark sighed, and he could almost hear an echo in her words.  From just over a decade ago, when a young Kryptonian had been made aware of his heritage and was determined to make the right choices in life.  Him.  His argument to his own parents.

They hadn't been able to dissuade him.  What hope did he have of dissuading Kara?

Less chance than wrestling Doomsday with one hand tied behind his back.

"Alright Kara, to be honest there was another reason I wanted to talk to you.  There was a meeting of the Justice League today," he said, as she sat back down, hands resting in her lap, fiddling with her fingers.  "And you happened to come up into the discussion."

"Oh really?" she asked excitedly.  "What'd they say?"

"Among other things, that you're hot-headed, too young, too opinionated, tend leap before you look, and in general are not a very good team player," he replied, roughly summarizing the League's view on Supergirl.  Well, except from the Flash and Wonder Woman.  Flash was also pretty young as far as super heroes went, and he felt that Supergirl could benefit immensely from time among them.  Learn by doing, and all that.  Wonder Woman felt much the same way, and had even offered to train Supergirl in much the same way she'd been trained on Themyscira.  Superman said he'd consider the offer.

"But those are my best traits!" said Supergirl with a giggle.  Then, seeing Clark wasn't amused, dropped the smile on her face.  "And come on, I've done plenty good too, and you know it."

"You mean you've usually gotten lucky," he replied.

"Excuse me?" she asked.  "Who saved you from Apokolips just before that comet hit?  Me!" she replied proudly.

"It was because of you I wound up there in the first place," he replied, keeping his calm.  She was right though, he thought.  Ultimately, her investigating into Intergang had led them to learning about the comet before it had been entirely too late.  And she had saved him from the Furies.

"Well... well what about that time I took down Livewire and Poison Ivy?" she asked indignantly.  She was not going to let all of her exploits come down to little stints of luck, damnit.  She wasn't -that- hopeless.  "Or that time I destroyed an alien trying to make everyone into mind-controlled zombies?"

To her surprise, Superman frown vanished, replaced by a smirk.

"Actually you just made a saving argument by mentioning both those times.  Because with that incident with Livewire you were working with Batgirl as a team."

"We both were.  We needed each other's help in that one particular instance.  Nothing wrong with that," she said defensively.  "Not like you don't need back-up from time to time."

"Kara, you're misunderstanding me.  I'm paying you a compliment."

She quirked up an eyebrow.  "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah.  You do have the -potential- to work in a team.  And that's what we were discussing in tonight's meeting," he said, taking a deliberate pause.  She was almost leaping out of the chair in excitement now.

"Then... you mean...?"

"We've decided to extend to you a formal invitation to join the Justice League," he said, bracing himself and his sensitive ears for what he knew was coming next.

He wasn't disappointed.

If someone had told Kara her parents were alive, she'd be happy.  If someone told her she had won the lottery, she'd be shocked and excited.  Right now she was an unhealthy and powerful blend of all these emotions, and for a moment she was pure bubbling, giggling girlish glee as she swooped up and down around the room, flying around in excitement and crying out 'oh my god' every few seconds until Clark pointedly caught her ankle as she passed to stop her from keeping it up.  Abruptly coming back to reality, she stopped in mid-air and gave a rather cute blush.

"Ooops, sorry... got a little carried away," she said, floating back down onto two feet after Clark released her ankle.

"Yes, you tend to do that," he said meaningfully.

"Oh no, no, I'll be perfect I swear.  I'm taking this absolutely seriously!" she said, and for a moment he believed her.

"You will be," he added, even more meaningfully.  "You're going to be taking this very seriously, Kara.  If not then it won't be up to me, and I've little doubt you'll quickly find yourself booted out of the League if you do something that endangers any of your new teammates.  So among other things, that means you have to listen to what we tell you."

"You got it," she replied, still ecstatic over hearing the news.  Then a thought suddenly occurred to her.  "Oh gosh, my costume's a mess... I'd better go get it in the wash..." she said, and started to run out of the room.  Clark, again, thrust out his hand and gently caught her by the waist before she could escape.

"I'm not finished," he stated, letting her go.  Grimacing, she sat back down again.

"Sorry... got carried away... again..."

"Just because I'm allowing you to become a superhero full-time," he said.  "Doesn't mean for one minute I want you to sacrifice your life as Kara Kent.  You are still responsible for that, and for anything involved in it, including homework and chores on the farm."

Supergirl's face scrunched into a decidedly disgusted look.  There was nothing on Earth she hated worse than chores.  Given a choice between them or a few rounds with the Female Furies, she'd choose those three hands down.  But life could not always be glamorous, she knew.  Even Clark had his whole 'secret identity' and job at the Daily Planet.

Clark finally relaxed his expression into a smile, and Kara gave him a hug, whispering a heartfelt "Thank you."

He returned the hug, but replied "Don't thank me yet.  John is going to eat you up and spit you out in no time, believe me."

"I'd like to see him try."

The next few months passed by in a blur for Supergirl.  She hadn't received any word from the League since, just the occasional visit from Clark.  They were all busy working to rebuild the League, and from even the few things she'd heard from Clark, she could tell it was going to be bigger and better than ever.

She'd returned home to Smallville to present the news to Johnathan and Martha (after such a short time living with them, she couldn't bring herself to call them 'Ma' and 'Pa' the way Clark did) and prepare herself.  True, the Kents had expressed their concerns, both to her and to Clark himself, but ultimately they were going along with their decision.  Supergirl was going to be a member of the Justice League!

But, as Clark had promised, that didn't mean she could stop being Kara Kent, who went to Smallville High as a sophomore, was still working to pass the DMV test and get her driver's license (all she had at the moment was a lousy learner's permit), and was member of the swim team this year.

Finally, the big day arrived.

Kara was busy chucking bales of hay up into the barn.  Though not very tiring work (she could usually lift them with one hand and toss them as easily as most humans could toss a soft drink can) she had been doing it all morning, and was starting to sweat like a pig.  Dimly she wiped at her forehead, brushing away the beads of sweat forming there.  Idly she wondered if Barbara, her good friend from Gotham City, would be so enamored with country life if she really had to do all these chores herself.  Her life in the big city sounded so much more appealing, but then again there was that saying about grass being greener on the other side.  Still, only a bit more to go.  Then she could go inside and get some of the lemonade Martha'd made that very morning.

"Having fun?" came a voice from the doorway.  Kara tossed up the bay of hale and idly turned to look, having recognized the voice.  Clark Kent stood there, wearing those stupid fake glasses and his ugly blue business suit.  Frankly, he looked hideous, but Kara decided that was the point.  Less chance of him being recognized as his costumed alter-ego.  She was still working on that herself, and still hadn't managed to perfect a secret identity.  Though it was harder for her, since she'd been leading a perfectly life on Argos until she'd been rescued and dragged to Earth and given all those wonderful yellow sun rays.

"No," she replied, dusting off her hands.  "I take back what I said, about Kansas being the most boring place on Earth.  This has got to be the simply most boring place in the -entire- -universe-," she said jokingly.

Clark chuckled at that.  "Wasn't like that when I was growing up here," he replied.  "Believe me," he added, allowing himself a moment to reminisce about his own time growing up in Smallville.  How he'd been almost like Kara, running around trying to help and half the time screwing things up by interfering, how he'd learned early on, and the hard way, being the good guy didn't always mean you could win.  Some part of him had wanted to spare Kara the hard life of a Superhero, but the more he'd tried, the harder she'd fought for it, and she was every bit as stubborn as he was.

So now, her fate was decided.  It was up to time to tell whether or not it had been the right choice.

"Well get yourself cleaned up," he said, shaking his head to clear it of his thoughts.  "It's time," he said meaningfully.

Giving a little whoop and allowing herself a quick fly around the barn (out of sight of the windows) she dropped to her feet and ran into the house, shouting the news to the Kents as soon as she was inside.  Clark shook his head.

Superhero or not, she was still a teenager.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," she replied.

Both of them were on the edge of the Kent field in full uniform, ready for transport.  Clark had said good-bye to the Kents, promising to have Kara home by Monday barring a world-shaking crisis, and they'd all shared a good laugh over that.  Now they were on their way to the new Watchtower.

Clark tapped the little communicator hidden in his right ear, and clearly said "Ready when you are Batman."

"Copy that," came a voice, clear and distinct in his ear.  He could almost swear Batman was standing right next to him.  "Engaging transporter now."

"What, no javel...?" asked Supergirl, her question cut off in mid-sentence as a bright beam of blue light engulfed both her and Superman, and the two of them were beamed right up into the Watchtower directly.

"...in picking us...?" she said, then abruptly stopped, gazing around in awe.

To describe the new facility as impressive would have been a dreadful understatement.  Even Superman, who'd been up there before a number of times, was still getting used to how grand and impressive the structure looked, even from the inside.  The influx of Kryptonian, Martian, and even Thanagarian technology (pilfered from the wreckage after the invasion) into Batman's original designs had done wonders to the structure.

"Wow," said Supergirl, completely in awe.  She stared up at the ceiling, over at the inky blackness of space and the stars beyond.  They weren't twinkling through the glass, but that was to be expected.  She dimly recalled a lesson back at Smallville High where she'd learned that 'twinkling' was caused by the distortion of starlight as it went through Earth's atmosphere.  But here, she was up in orbit...

"Welcome back," intoned Batman, standing by the control panel and immediately catching Supergirl's attention.  She'd never actually had the chance to meet him, after all, though she'd seen his image before in the news.  The other members of the Justice League were all there too, standing around, welcoming her and Superman.  Wonder Woman, J'onn the Martian, the Flash.  Welcoming her as an equal (a rookie, she admitted to herself, but still an equal).  It was a life-long dream come true.

"Welcome Kara," said Wonder Woman, extending a hand that Kara shook dimly.  It was all a little much for her.

"We'll be explaining everything shortly," said Superman.  "Why don't you go join the others until everyone has arrived."

Kara turned, looked, and finally noticed all the others gathered.  So many, so many heroes.  The room was covered in bright, sometimes even garish colors from all the costumes, from heroes big and small, all gathered on the main floor of the room.  She recognized a few of them, but most of them were unfamiliar.  Taking Clark's advice, she lifted up off the transporter pad and floated down to join them with a smile on her face, eager to talk.  And for once, not to brag about her own exploits.  She wanted to hear about theirs.  But to her surprise, a number of them quickly turned their eyes on her arrival and she was bombarded with questions.  It seems Supergirl was as much a celebrity among the superhero community as Superman himself.

Some were skeptical of her, surprisingly.  The youngest of the team here (by at least five years, in some cases) some argued that she'd been allowed by playing the trump 'cousin card.'  But she was being defended by a few who knew of her and what she'd done.  However, she got the impression not everyone was convinced, and she'd have to prove herself to them in the coming days.  But she soon relaxed and started a casual exchange of words with the others to pass the time.

Finally, the very last of their new inductees had arrived, a tall man with a blonde goatee and an outfit that looked straight out of a Robin Hood movie.  Green Arrow, she thought she heard someone say behind her.  He'd arrived with the Lantern.

"And where am I, exactly?" asked Green Arrow, giving the same look around much as she had.  Awe and confusion.  It wasn't everyday you were beamed up straight into the heart of the Watchtower, after all.

"Among friends," replied Superman, directing his attention to the newly gathered superheroes.  Kara smiled.  She was going to like it up here.  So many people she could finally relate to.  Could be herself around.

Order was called, and Supergirl found herself in the small crowd as they obediently stared up at the podium which Superman had just taken.  He seemed unusually solemn, and she resisted the urge to doze off as so typically employed in the high school classroom.  This was going to be important, she sensed.

"... because there are so many of us, we have a chance to do more than just put out fires.  Both literal and figurative.  We have a chance to be a real force for good in the world.  But we're going to have to be organized."

"J'onn will be up here," Superman went on, pointing up to a small station where the Martian stood, arms folded across his chest.  "It'll be his job to determine who goes where and when.  I know a lot of you are used to making those decisions on your own, but we're going to have to be coordinated.  We can't be cowboys anymore," he said.  Then, as afterthought, he added, "Or cowgirls."

Some good natured laughing filled the air, mostly polite since it hadn't even been that good of a joke.  However, Supergirl didn't join in.  She had the distinct impression Superman had, in truth been saying 'and this means you, Kara.'  She got the message already.

The rest of his speech passed in a blur, and soon the League had again broken up into smaller groups with little purpose.  The Flash was flirting with some of the new female members of the team (thought thankfully not Kara herself) while she spotted Batman having a word in edgewise with Green Arrow.  Wonder Woman was nowhere to be seen, and must've headed off elsewhere into the facility.  Supergirl decided to carry on her conversation with a blonde man she'd met after just arriving, though for the life of her she couldn't remember his name.  Still, she was starting to get bored.  She'd signed on to the Justice League for some action, not to join some sort of club house.  Did they all just sit around all day until one of the senior members of the League gave them a mission?

"Captain Atom!" came a voice from above, a voice she recognized as belonging to Green Lantern.  "Kara!"

She gave a smirk.  This was what she'd been waiting for.

"'bout time."

_Mom_, she thought_.  Dad.  I hope I make you both proud_.

**Author's Notes:**

Obviously with the broadcast of Justice League Unlimited's first episode featuring prominently my favorite blonde superheroine, I felt a need to do another one-shot focusing on her and her cousin.  Kara does seem to have trouble keeping a consistent secret identity, with the brown wig and glasses, as well as a number of other things.  She did show up to Superman's funeral in 'Hereafter' (she can be seen with the Kents and Lana Lang) but not in costume and not with her disguise.  Plus, at least in the Superman series she casually called Superman 'Clark.'  She really needs to be more careful.  Supergirl's past exploits on the old Superman series are, of course 'Little Girl Lost,' 'Unity' and 'Legacy.'  As well as a brief team up with Batgirl in 'Girl's Night Out.'  I can't be positive but I'm fairly sure that Supergirl is only sixteen years old in the DCAU (and thus would only be a sophomore at Smallville High).  If this is wrong someone please inform me.  Superman's speech to the new recruits (I can't help but think of them that way, I'm still a hardcore Evo fan) was largely taken word from word from the episode 'Initiation,' though of course modified to fit Kara's point-of-view.  Kara's parents were cryogenically frozen on Argos, along with her, but they perished before Superman arrived in time to save them, leaving Kara the sole survivor of her family (there was a third tube as well, perhaps containing one of Kara's siblings, that perished as well).


End file.
